Therapy
by Mad Scientist Sidekick
Summary: Set in the same continuity as "Obsession" - so how did a therapist who seemed to have her feet on the ground fall for a mass murdering clown? The following scenes depict therapy sessions in which the Joker brought Harley into his world. Read w/ Obsession
1. Chapter 1

Good People

**I do not own either of these characters or Arkham. I wish I did, but I don't.**

"Do you understand why you're here?" It was Harley's first real therapy session with the Joker. She had already testified at his competency hearing, that she thought he might be schizophrenic and she was certain he was mentally ill. Dr. Stevens, the man who had taken over after Dr. Arkham had retired, had backed her up on that before he even talked to the Joker. That was typical Stevens – if he could delegate a task, he did it without hesitation.

"Yes." He looked different without make-up, but there was still something very, well, crazy, in his eyes. They were in an observation room, with guards on the other side should he start acting violent. There didn't seem to be much danger of that, considering he was in a straight jacket. And anyway, he seemed to get along with her all right.

"Tell me about that."

"I killed a lot of people, but the good doctors here have decided I'm too crazy for prison."

"How many people?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. Do you understand that that was wrong?"

"Right and wrong are irrelevant. But yes, under most morality systems, what I did was very, very bad."

"So you understand that but you did it anyway."

"Like I said, right and wrong are irrelevant."

"Why is that?"

"There's going to be chaos and evil in the world anyway, you might as well have a sense of humor about it."

"But wouldn't the world be better if everyone was good?" He laughed, but it wasn't his usual laugh. It was cold, sarcastic.

"Good people? Let me tell you about good people. Good men kiss their wives, kiss their little girls, and leave for 'work' and rape someone else's little girl or never come back at all. And good women, don't get me started on them. Good women go to PTA meetings and church and then beat their kids within an inch of their lives because they tracked mud on the carpet or make them sick so they can get attention. And the thing is, someone knows about it, or ought to know about it, but no one says anything, because they don't want to mess with the 'good people'."

"They're not good people then, they just put up a good show."

"Everyone just puts up a good show. No one is really good. You know, maybe they're not beating their kids or anything like that, but there's something they do, something that hurts someone else, and they still think they're good. Everyone thinks they're good. And the very, very few who don't aren't hurting other people, aren't hurting anyone because they're too busy getting their teeth kicked out by everyone else. And even then, I'll bet you good money they still hurt people - maybe on accident, maybe even when they think they're helping. I'm not any worse than anyone else, I just do what everyone else does behind closed doors, only I do it openly."

"That's extremely cynical, J."

"Healthy dose of cynicism never hurt anyone."

"So you don't think people can be good?"

"I didn't say that. People can be good - they're just not."

"What did you think about the results of your experiment?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The ferries? Don't tell me you don't remember."

"Oh, that."

"If no one is good, why didn't they blow each other up?"

"False hope someone was going to save them all."

"Someone did."

"Yeah, well, nobody's perfect. Next time, I'll use a time bomb."

"Do you think the results would have been different if they hadn't had, as you called it, false hope?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"No one is going to die for people they don't know. A kid sure, a wife maybe, a friend possibly, but not a stranger."

"Some people do. Pushing kids out of the way of oncoming cars, you've heard of that?"

"They don't think it through, they just act instinctively. If they actually realized pushing the kid would result in their death they wouldn't do it. Unless they were suicidal. You might get some suicidal martyr knowingly giving up their life for someone, but that's sort of selfish in and of itself if you think about it."

"Why are you sure?"

"I have history on my side. People try to justify it - they'll do it no matter what but they want to feel better about themselves so they try to come up with a reason other than saving their own __. Why do you think everyone, even the so-called 'good people' went along with the Nazis? If you object, you die, so start killing Jews and listen to the propaganda so you really will think they're subhuman and you won't even have to feel like a coward for doing it." She didn't know how to answer. She'd always agreed with him really. She had certainly failed to see very much goodness in humanity in the thirty-three years she'd been walking the Earth.

"My mother was one of the women you're talking about," she said softly. "One of the ones who puts up a good show. She was respected in Last Chance, a teacher, a member of the PTA. She really loved my sister, my dad, and me in public. She used to beat him with a coat hanger for smiling at other women."

"What did she do to you?"

"The cigarette burns," she answered. "And she broke my collarbone, both my arms, most of my fingers, an ankle, and a couple of ribs. My sister got off easy, she only had one arm and a nose broken. On separate occasions, of course, but ... No one said anything. The ER doctors believed that I really was just that clumsy. Dad left when I was seven, Lyddy was three. Never even called to ask how she treated us." Very few people knew that. Most people, upon hearing it, would have been embarrassed and said they were sorry. The Joker didn't say anything, just looked at her as though something had been explained - and maybe with a little, tiny hint of pity. Or maybe that's what she was hoping to see in his face. "You know, one of the prisoners threw the detonator away," she said, going back on subject.

"Of course, I knew it would be the 'good people' who pushed the button. They had more to live for, and they could justify what they did by saying they were only getting rid of some scum on society's shoes. But you know, the joke really would have been on them - they had the detonator to their own bomb."

"What?"

"You'd be amazed what you can do with one little lie."


	2. Chapter 2

Notes

**I do not own these characters nor am I receiving any financial compensation for these writings.**

Dr. Quinzel sat in her office, making notes to herself, watching the tapes of her first sessions with the Joker. "He lies to me all the time," she wrote. "In the space of a week, he's already told me many different stories about his scars, many of them involving self-mutilation. But somehow, I don't think so. Another inmate called him a freak today, and I saw the look on J's face. He's been called a freak before, and he doesn't like it. He's learned not to let it get under his skin too much, but it still bothers him. I think this was done by someone else, and I think it was done to him when he was young. What would it be like, as a child, to go to school with a Glasgow grin carved into your face, especially if there was a particularly lurid reason for its being there?" She looked back up at the screen watching him talk. "What happened to you, J? What made you into the Joker?" she asked aloud. She would ask him, but she knew the answer wouldn't be an honest one. She finished the notes she was working on, and then she shut off her office light.


	3. Chapter 3

Funny

**I do not own these characters and have received no financial compensation for this work.**

Dr. Quinzel had been working with J long enough to know he couldn't remember the names of the people he had killed, and some of them he didn't even know. But she thought he might remember their faces, and anyway she wanted to know if he was as remorseless as he said he was. It took her awhile, but she was able to gather the photographs of the policemen who had been killed defending the armored truck that held Harvey Dent. "Who are they?" he asked when she laid the photos out on the table at the beginning of the day's session. J didn't have to wear the straightjacket anymore, at least not when he was in the interview room with his primary therapist.

"They're the policemen who died to protect Harvey Dent from you," she said, trying not to let her voice betray any emotion. She was on edge about it - seeing the pictures reminded her of what he was, reminded her that no matter what progress she made with him, he was still a killer and nothing would bring those officers back. She watched his reaction, and he didn't even blink. He just shrugged a little. She read their names to him from a list the station had given her, along with how many kids they had. He didn't even blink. "Are you sorry at all for the families?" she asked, feeling sick to her stomach to see the expression on his face - he was clearly bored by this exercise.

"Why would I be?"

"Because you took away their fathers."

"Is that going to change because I feel sorry for them?"

"No."

"So why would I waste my time worrying about it?"

"Because you're human." He laughed, the cold, wild laughter that terrified most people. It made her heart race a little bit, knowing he was every bit as remorseless as he had initially claimed, but she was still unafraid.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked slyly.

"At the moment, no," she said honestly, unable to stop the truthful answer from passing her lips. He raised his eyebrows.

"You're new at this, aren't you?"

"At what?"

"Criminal psychiatry."

"Relatively. Have you been on the receiving end of this before?"

"Now, darlin', wouldn't Gotham PD have found a record of that? I know you're new to this because you're too young to have been a psychiatrist for too long, and even I can tell you're a little bit ... unconventional."

"Please call me Dr. Quinzel," she said automatically - she was used to patients calling her names, though "darlin'" was probably the most pleasant one that had ever been used on her. She wasn't sure how she felt about the fact he clearly liked her so much, should she be alarmed that a mass murderer enjoyed her company?

"Dr. Quinzel," he repeated hollowly. "So why does a pretty young woman like you want to work at a place like this, unraveling twisted minds like mine?"

"I'm not the focus of these discussions, you're the one in therapy," she said quickly.

"I don't want to talk, I want to listen," he said stubbornly.

"Tell me why you kill people and I'll tell you why I want to help you."

"Because I feel like it."

"But _why_ do you feel like it?"

"I think what you mean to ask is if I had a crappy childhood."

"Well did you?"

"I guess it depends on your definition of a crappy childhood."

"Do you think it was?"

"Probably."

"What do you mean probably?"

"The past changes all the time."

"No, it doesn't, you lie about it." He put a hand over his heart and playacted at being mortally offended.

"That hurts, Dr. Quinzel."

"Why? Why does that hurt worse than being called a murderer?" she asked, pretending to take him seriously. That clearly annoyed him and he rolled his eyes.

"So, if we're going to be perfectly literal, I told you why I kill people, you tell me why you want to help me."

"I ... I like helping people."

"So why aren't you helping rich people for several hundred dollars an hour?"

"I like to fix things that are broken."

"Why? Do you think you're broken?" Yes.

"I don't think that's ..."

"Simple question, doc. People who think they're broken have a tendency to want to fix everything and everyone else." Yes, that's exactly why she had wanted to work with the most fractured minds, why she'd come to Gotham of all the places in the world. But she couldn't tell him that, and she couldn't let it show on her face.

"You're right, but that's not ..."

"I'm usually right, darlin'." She'd meant to say he was right about people, but that's not how it came out.

"Dr. Quinzel."

"Dr. Quinzel," he repeated mockingly.

"I'm not the focus ..."

"So why do you think you're broken?" Nobody ever asked, nobody cared. She was invisible most of the time, unless people thought they could get something out of her. She didn't think he was any different – she put herself on guard, prepared to search for the motive behind his interest. She opened her mouth to search for another way to shift the conversation back to him, but she felt his hand on her arm and she froze. She always found a man's touch unpleasant, no matter whose it was. She was wearing long sleeves – she always did, no matter how hot it was, because of the cigarette burns on her forearm, but he was still able to find the exact location of the scars. He looked at her, cocking his head, studying her reaction. Unfortunately, her mother was just the beginning. The guard in the room was on J almost instantaneously, breaking his grip on Harley's arm and pushing him back into his seat. This was the first time, since the first night at that emergency evaluation, something like this had happened, and Harley was worried to see how J would react to the guard pushing him around. He gritted his teeth, then closed his eyes, obviously agitated.

"Does he have to be in here?" he asked, still not opening his eyes.

"Officer, why don't you wait outside?"

"Dr. Quinzel …"

"You can still see in here, you'll know if he tries anything." The guard gave her one last wary look, then walked outside.

"It's like a Catholic school in here," J said dryly, rubbing the wrist the guard had grabbed to break his grip, and Harley was startled by the strong temptation to laugh.

"Did you go to a Catholic school?" she asked instead, hoping that would get the discussion back on track.

"I got these from a nun," he said smoothly, gesturing dramatically at his scars, and once again she was shocked and a little alarmed to discover that she found him funny. "It's a great story."

"I'm sure it is," she said, fighting not to smile any more than she always did. "But let's try the truth."

"You don't think a nun could cut a guy like this?"

"I don't think most of them would. I think most of them prefer rapping wrists with rulers to carvings Glasgow grins into the faces of mischievous boys." He paused, considering what she said.

"You know, you probably won't believe this, but I was actually a good boy." She thought it might be a lead-in for one of his crazy lies, but he just stopped talking.

"What changed that?" she asked, hoping she might be getting somewhere.

"I got framed for something I didn't do and a nun cut my mouth." Something about the way he said it, so insistently and as though the answer was obvious, was hilarious. It shouldn't be that funny, it was not that funny, but she couldn't help herself. She giggled a little bit, and he broke out in a triumphant grin to see that he had finally cracked her shell. She caught sight of one of the policemen's photographs, still on the table, and her blood ran cold.

Whatever happened, she couldn't let herself like him. She had to care about him, want to help him, but she absolutely must not like him.


End file.
